Hugo Chavez (Re) Ig-nites Furor in Chile

So last March the entire continent of South America almost imploded in nuclear war because Columbia stole a laptop from Ecuador and then Bogota said that the laptop said that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez gave $300 million to terrorist organization Sierra Club FARC, and it's all so fake that it's true. Then it got even faker-truer because Interpol got Bogota's back, and with a winner of a one-liner Chavez fired back calling Interpol's secretary general Ronald Noble - are you ready? - "Mr. Ignoble".

Get it?

But now Chavez' rhetorical shotgun charge has sprayed well beyond Mr. Ignoble eliciting yelps from Chile! because the president of Interpol is from Chile! Yes, Chavez called Chilean Arturo Herrera, who's also currently the Chief of Civil Police here, "Mr. Ig-herrera". Actually, he didn't.

But what Chavez did do was impugn Mr. Ig-herrera's credibility by searching on the Internets and pointing out that the guy really is actually totally kinda "Ig-", if at least in a loose sense of the prefix, because he's way too close for comfort to DINA, the internationally mysterious, coke-addled, bitch-tapping and, oh-yeah, murderous SS Gestapo of Pinochet's military junta.

Of course the socialist, bleed-with-moon President Michelle Bachelet resoundingly joined Chile's shocked and offended conservative chorus in rejecting Chavez' accusations and then, appealing to propriety, she obsessively repeated the politically charged keyword "formal", as in, what Chavez isn't, Copper Banana Republic dictator that he is, thus kinda sidestepping the awkward truth that Mr. Ig-herrera, despite spending nearly half his career working closely with junta generals under patently shady circumstances, thrives with complete impunity and approval of Bachelet's own Interior Secretary, the Dutch-born, immigrant-hating, evidence-planting Felipe Harboe.

Fortunately for all of us, the Chilean Center for Investigative Journalism, CIPERchile.CL, has taken an in-depth Behind the Bluster look at the shady biography of the Interpol President and Chilean national Police Chief and, as it happens, Chavez hardly scratched the surface.

With almost 37 years of service, five and a half of which he has directed the Civil Police, Herrera Verdugo's [Mr. Ig-herrera's] trajectory has sufficiently more chiaroscuros and shades than...what the Venezuelan President suggested a week ago.

Furthermore, Chavez is only re-awakening discussion of Mr. Ig-herrera's past, which flourished last year while the crook so indefensible that even Bachelet wouldn't defend him, General Raúl Iturriaga, evaded incarceration for 52 days pending a 5 year sentence for the disappearance of 22-year-old revolutionary Luis San Martín Vergara.

Upon being detained in Viña del Mar by a group of detectives, the retired military officer said to his captors: "I know your boss very well."

It's a fascinating, action-packed article, if you haven't, then click here now and read it already! (in Spanish), here's my rough translation of the abstract:

Arturo Herrera developed almost half of his police career under the dictatorship. He first worked in International Police as a bodyguard and assistant to General Ernesto Baeza, who directed Investigations until 1980 and collaborated closely with DINA activities abroad. He later became one of the most trusted men of General Fernando Paredes', successor to Baeza and developer of an iron-cast, repressive institutional policy. It was Paredes who taught him to play golf and entrusted him with the barracks in Papudo, created for the purpose of protecting and assisting the relaxation of the old director in that hot springs resort. Two decades later, the past continues into the present under the direction of the current Chief of Civil Police.

Now, before discounting CIPER Chile dot CL as a militant left-wing propaganda machine just because they didn't take US $2 million from the CIA like Augustin Edwards, owner of El Mercurio, did, consider that CIPER Chile is fresh out of the gate but quickly becoming one of the most credible sources for investigative journalism in Chile, if not Latin America, acting as a wire service providing stories to Chilean media, stories built often by prosecuting to the utmost capacity the free release of public documents in the tradition of, and allied with, organizations such as National Security Archive and George Washington University, as well as Fundación Nuevo Periodismo Iberoamericano, Center for Public Integrity, etc., also CIPER Chile is backed by George Soros' London Open Society Foundation and COPESA and led by award-winning journalist Mónica González and award-winning journalist John Dinges so don't even think about it, just read the article now.